Don't say we didn't warn you! New research has found that regular pot smokers, who started smoking in school, had lower IQ scores as adults.TELEGRAPH.CO.UK reports:Teenagers who regularly smoke cannabis are putting themselves at risk of permanently damaging their intelligence, according to a landmark study.

Really? Let me explain how scientific thinking works. You start out with a hypothesis that one variable causes a change in another variable but then you have to prove it. You start out assuming there is Zero correlation - no relationship - no cause and effect. You then have to prove to a very strong degree of certainty, that this result was extremely unlikely to have happened by chance.In other words, the burden of proof is on you to prove beyond chance occurence that Marijuana decreases IQ, not the other was around, your statement about "some of the stupidest people I know....." not withstanding. Even this study didn't say that except for a very small subgroup who started before 18 and began 'persistent" use by 18 but not in their 20's. And there still are other possible explanations to account for the small no of pts that "apparently"couldn't be fully recovered from the 8 pt drop and some of those didn't even stop, just cut back .And only 1 out of 20 started earlier than 18.FOX NEWS, WHEN USED AS DIRECTED, IS GUARANTEED TO LOWER YOUR IQ! YOU CAN'T SAY THAT ABOUT CANNABIS.

The reason I explained what I did is because limited personal observation - experience - can be very misleading and therefore has to be shown to be representative of the rest of the population or it only may tell you what is true of that small group and even that assumes your observations are objectively accurate. And that's why I said the burden of proof is on you to prove that your experience is really typical of all pot smokers.Just remember, there was a time before Copernicus when when we thought the sun revolved around earth. Why? Because that's what we saw, but it was wrong because we didn't yet have the knowledge to understand what we thought we were seeing. I'm certainly not minimizing your experience, but here are the possible limitations.1.You statement that "Some of the stupidest people I know smoke huge joints. Their IQs have dropped below negative 1." sounds very biased. First of all what the hell does negative 1 mean? I'm serious about that. How are you defining "stupedist"? They don't agree with you about pot? I'm not saying that's true but some people think that way and they don't have a clue what intelligence is or how to define it. Did they change after starting smoke pot or did you always know them as stupid?2. If they're smoking huge joints, that's not y...

The reason I explained what I did is because limited personal observation - experience - can be very misleading and therefore has to be shown to be representative of the rest of the population or it only may tell you what is true of that small group and even that assumes your observations are objectively accurate. And that's why I said the burden of proof is on you to prove that your experience is really typical of all pot smokers.Just remember, there was a time before Copernicus when when we thought the sun revolved around earth. Why? Because that's what we saw, but it was wrong because we didn't yet have the knowledge to understand what we thought we were seeing. I'm certainly not minimizing your experience, but here are the possible limitations.1.You statement that "Some of the stupidest people I know smoke huge joints. Their IQs have dropped below negative 1." sounds very biased. First of all what the hell does negative 1 mean? I'm serious about that. How are you defining "stupedist"? They don't agree with you about pot? I'm not saying that's true but some people think that way and they don't have a clue what intelligence is or how to define it. Did they change after starting smoke pot or did you always know them as stupid?2. If they're smoking huge joints, that's not your average pot smoker, so they may be smoking very heavily, even all day long .And that's a whole different ballgame. It's a special class of users then.3. You say "some of the stupedist people I know....". OK But how many is that? 2, 5, 8, 15,..25. it makes a difference! 4.Many other people's experience disagrees with yours, so yours can't be typical of the general population. Several people have described some of the most brilliant people they know as being pot smokers. Smart people, successful people, and yes., even some very famous scientists smoked pot, like Carl Sagan. Some of our Founding Fathers - brilliant minds , smoked.

If the people you know that are really as dumb as you say, I have to ask .... were they stupid to begin with or did pot make them stupid. You can't just assume automatically that just because two things are related that one has to cause the other. It could very well be that if the people you know were stupid to begin with and/or had other psychological problems that drew them to pot, you think the pot caused it but it may be the other way around.And by the way , some of the brightest people I've known have smoked pot. Also, some of the dumbest, although much fewer by far. Some ot the stupidest people I've known never smoked pot. Some of the brightest people I've known didn't smoke. On the whole, pot smokers I've known are more intelligent.Stupid people don't like to sit around thinking about their consciousness raising experience and deep insights.

The pot heads seldom do take that into consideration.
For most people, real life experiences and or real life examples would certainly trump the studies that say Yea or Nay
If you lined up a thousand people in front of the pro pot users that will honestly attest to how their involvement with Cannabis consumption did not make their lives any better while it negatively effected them and or people they associate with the hard core defenders of pot consumption will simply ignore the real life negative experiences of other people.
It seems, the high the users seek supersedes all other matters in importance.
They will side with the pro pot studies and info that is pro pot while defending their use of the drug and their intoxication on the drug while citing any pro pot consumption study they can use in defense of their drug consuming practices and their resultant intoxications.
Very few of them will simply admit they like to be a stoner and do not really care about what others think of their drug use and their habitual slovenly intoxications.
They are risk takers more so than most others while most of them have to learn the hard way that their involvement with marijuana consumption and all that their involvement entails can and often does result in their eventual demise in a nu...

The pot heads seldom do take that into consideration.
For most people, real life experiences and or real life examples would certainly trump the studies that say Yea or Nay
If you lined up a thousand people in front of the pro pot users that will honestly attest to how their involvement with Cannabis consumption did not make their lives any better while it negatively effected them and or people they associate with the hard core defenders of pot consumption will simply ignore the real life negative experiences of other people.
It seems, the high the users seek supersedes all other matters in importance.
They will side with the pro pot studies and info that is pro pot while defending their use of the drug and their intoxication on the drug while citing any pro pot consumption study they can use in defense of their drug consuming practices and their resultant intoxications.
Very few of them will simply admit they like to be a stoner and do not really care about what others think of their drug use and their habitual slovenly intoxications.
They are risk takers more so than most others while most of them have to learn the hard way that their involvement with marijuana consumption and all that their involvement entails can and often does result in their eventual demise in a number of ways while they were forewarned numerous times.

If you want to defend the drug, as it stands on its own, then it is now well known that marijuana is the least detrimental drug of the available recreational intoxicants out there to be consumed for pleasure purposes.

Of course the drug has a number of merits and usefull purposes as do nearly all plants relative to the variety of substances that can be derived or manufactured from the plants.

But that does not absolve the drug and or the drug users of any problems or ramifications caused by the supply and consumption of the drug and everything that is entailed.
Society has learned, over the last 50 years, that widespread consumption of the drug for the sole purpose of intoxication comes with a number of detriments to many of the users along with a number of social ramifications that have also evolved from wide spread consumption and intoxication on the drug.
This study, that everyone on this site is debating about, does not change the fact that there always will be a number of people ( percentages ) that are negatively effected by marijuana use, especially if used to the point of habitual consumption and habitual intoxication.
Does it lower IQ?
That would be very hard to varify while studies will always be questioned and doubted as to their validity.
Personally I know that some people become all the more articulate when stoned while plenty of the users more or less Dummy Up when stoned.
If given the choice between having to live with the pot heads verses the drunkards I would choose the pot heads as we well know the drunkards can be a mean and nasty lot, all too often.

Meantime, I find myself amused at just how fast the users jump up to defend the drug and their use of the drug while always ignoring any info about the negative aspects while defending their intoxications...often with hostility.
Unfortunately all too many of the users will find out the hard way that consuming marijuana, while continually been involved in Marijauna consumption, does not help them rather it makes matters worse for many of the users.

Yes the word "synapse" means more to me than apparently it does to you. The article you link to is almost completely undocumented. It throws in everything but the kitchen sink. Is much of it true? Of course it is in very small %age of users. But have you ever read the fact sheet from a typical prescription pharmaceutical? It reads like a who's who of side effects. If 3% experienced a cough, they have to list it. And if you know how to read those sheets, it will tell you whether that %age is even significantly higher than the control group meaning the drug didn't cause the symptom. Paranoia, for example, is on the list, but that is NOT a common reaction to cannabis Neither is low blood pressure, blurred vision, psychosis (unless there's an underlying predisposition).Someone walks into a emergency room presenting symptoms of paranoia and they smoke pot. Is that proof that pot causes paranoia? Or is does it mean that people who are paranoid shouldn't smoke pot? You can't just throw these accusations around loosely without documenting cause and effect and the %age of people that experience these problems.

First of, I said no, but that is NOT the real answer. There is simply no evidence to suggest that Pot use adversely affects intelligence in this study. In fact, the only reason I know that this study is supposed to be a criticism of smoking pot is because of the leading headline. If we are going, as a public, to look at these studies, we need to at least have the most basic ability to understand them.

I would like you, for just a moment, to imagine a world where very intelligent and driven people who have the spotlight shown on them constantly are a bit hesitant about doing pot. I would also like you to imagine that people who are ALREADY dumb as a sack of hammers might be a little more likely to break the law, and get high instead of, say, studying. I mean, this would COMPLETELY explain this 8 point drop in intelligence, all without pot affecting your intelligence by one whit. In this scenario, you could be smart or dumb, and pot smoking doesn't have to change your intelligence in any way, in much the same way that the physical act of wearing a, "Harvard" sweatshirt doesn't make you smarter, even though the people who wear Harvard sweatshirts are, on the whole, fairly intelligent. Is this world similar to the reality in which we live? Yeah, I think the answer to that is a re...

First of, I said no, but that is NOT the real answer. There is simply no evidence to suggest that Pot use adversely affects intelligence in this study. In fact, the only reason I know that this study is supposed to be a criticism of smoking pot is because of the leading headline. If we are going, as a public, to look at these studies, we need to at least have the most basic ability to understand them.

I would like you, for just a moment, to imagine a world where very intelligent and driven people who have the spotlight shown on them constantly are a bit hesitant about doing pot. I would also like you to imagine that people who are ALREADY dumb as a sack of hammers might be a little more likely to break the law, and get high instead of, say, studying. I mean, this would COMPLETELY explain this 8 point drop in intelligence, all without pot affecting your intelligence by one whit. In this scenario, you could be smart or dumb, and pot smoking doesn't have to change your intelligence in any way, in much the same way that the physical act of wearing a, "Harvard" sweatshirt doesn't make you smarter, even though the people who wear Harvard sweatshirts are, on the whole, fairly intelligent. Is this world similar to the reality in which we live? Yeah, I think the answer to that is a resounding, "YES!". They have established a correlation, but the evidence for a causal link is laughable at best.

And as a kicker, one might expect that if pot had no effect on intelligence, then once a person got older and more responsible and more capable of making informed choices, then if they started smoking, it would not indicate a lower intelligence. If pot actually made you dumber, then choosing to smoke pot later would make you less intelligence, albiet at a perhaps decreased intensity. And lo and behold, this study shows that older smokers aren't effected by this decrease in intelligence, providing a solid argument that the effect is not causal.

To answer most responses to this post, 1) Pot could lower intelligence. I strongly suspect that it does not, but there is no evidence one way or another in this study. 2) I do not smoke pot, I did not smoke pot when I was younger, and I do not plan on ever smoking pot.

Regulation keeps alcohol out of the hands of teens much better than a black market does. It's easier for teens to get marijuana than alcohol right now in the US. A drug dealer doesn't ask for ID and introduces people to harder narcotics. When consumed by an adult, the IQ loss isn't very significant. It's only when consumed as a minor for years and years does it create a permanent lowered IQ. That's why regulation is important, to keep it out of their hands to begin with.

I do not disagree with what you are saying, to a degree.
The negative impact, so to speak, will be reduced for sure and I want to see the drug legalised so consumers are not criminalised the way they are now.
Meantime the legal consumption and regulations concerning tobacco and alcohol has not stopped people ( many teenagers ) from breaking the related laws and regulations.
So be prepared for continued law breaking and many people ignoring the regulations while a good number will still be arrested and or going to jail and or prison.
That means people in trouble with the laws and law enforcement and that means one day it could very well be you also negatively effected somehow some way if your associated with the consumption of the drug or people involved supplying or consuming the drug illegally..such as your children who may simply ignore the underage laws and buy the drug from any supplier who can supply them.
Many of those drug dealers will also be happy to supply your underage children with the other harder drugs you mentioned.
Furthermore I predict there will still be a significant amount of the drug supplied and puchased illegally by way of a black market that will form because of the high prices the consumers would be paying.
If the prices do remain at around $200...

I do not disagree with what you are saying, to a degree.
The negative impact, so to speak, will be reduced for sure and I want to see the drug legalised so consumers are not criminalised the way they are now.
Meantime the legal consumption and regulations concerning tobacco and alcohol has not stopped people ( many teenagers ) from breaking the related laws and regulations.
So be prepared for continued law breaking and many people ignoring the regulations while a good number will still be arrested and or going to jail and or prison.
That means people in trouble with the laws and law enforcement and that means one day it could very well be you also negatively effected somehow some way if your associated with the consumption of the drug or people involved supplying or consuming the drug illegally..such as your children who may simply ignore the underage laws and buy the drug from any supplier who can supply them.
Many of those drug dealers will also be happy to supply your underage children with the other harder drugs you mentioned.
Furthermore I predict there will still be a significant amount of the drug supplied and puchased illegally by way of a black market that will form because of the high prices the consumers would be paying.
If the prices do remain at around $200 to $400 U.S. dollars per ounce across the nation then that would be a good incentive to supply it to the users for less than the official legal price.
Only if the drugs are cheap will we see the hard core criminal elements fade away.
Furthermore there will be plenty of users who would gladly buy it illegally for half the legal price and happy to cut out those big profiteering suppliers and cut out the government from those "stupid taxes" they attach to the drug at retail levels.
Just saying that these are some of the "ramifications" of the supply and consumption of the drug although the extent is yet to be seen.
It would be nice if it was all home grown and supplied by thousands of legally operated Mom and Pop enterprises while notable numbers of people participated and reasonably profited from cultivating and supplying marijuana.
I doubt it will be anything like that relative to the legal mass consumption of the drug for recreational purposes say 20 years down the road.
There will remain numerous social ramifications similar or the same in some aspects while there will still remain a percent of the people whos lives are negatively effected by their ongoing involvement in marijuana consumption for the sole purpose of recreational intoxication.
Even if legal there will still be a fall out percent that have to be accomodated by other people or other entities that reluctantly have to intervene when a recreational drug users life is in need of correction(s) or in need of help to get away from their involvement in the habitual consumption of the drug and habitual intoxication.
For many users it is not always all wondefull and totally harmless to habitually consume the drug and habitually be intoxicated on the drug.
If the drug is legal I am certain, like alcohol and tobacco, the percent of people who will indulge will increase not decrease so there will be all the more people being negatively effected by their involvement in one more recreational intoxicant on top of the already existing recreational intoxicants along with the associated social problems.

I will enjoy watching what evolves and I surmise it will not all be as good as believed by the users and pro pot advocates who seemingly have visions of some sort of utopian marijuana consuming market place.

As for the IQ loss debate, personally I feel it is not a significant detriment even if it could be proved that a person or persons have suffered an IQ drop because of their consumption of marijuana.
From what I understand many people suffer an IQ drop from simply not using their brains often enough while not stimulating their brains often enough.
That and aging will also effect your IQ from what I have read.

The is Reefer Madness hysterical hype. The dude on "Super High Me" did a heck of a lot better than the one in "Super Size Me". Is there something in your water supply?
Of course, keep those too IMMATURE from using ANY mind-modifier, be it chocolate to heroin.

I've quit tobacco 15 years ago, within a year of my Mother's passing from lung cancer (@ age 56). I've been on medical cannabis for about 5 years now & most folks who are familiar with Me say I'm better on it than going without it (did this Spring, not good).

Tobacco works by stimulating DOPAMINE (Freud's Pleasure Center), what most Psych ("Tranquilizers") Drugs target, hence why 70 % of 'patient' smoke, to counter the prescribed Meds. SSRI (Anti·Depressants) target another neurotransmitter, serotonin, with similar unpredictable results (Columbine e.g.). Cannabis modulates its own particular analogue[s] (cannabinoids, 400+ known) within the brain which has been little-studied at present.

Good to hear you quit. I quit smoking cigarettes about 3 years ago after smoking for about 15 years, just using cannabis for a week is how I quit, it really helped eliminate my cravings for tobacco. I tried everything, the gum, patches, etc... nothing worked but cannabis. It is fantastic for many uses.

Have a Medical license for arthritis & IBS, also has a mood-stabilizing effect, only need to toke one day (vary from two per to one per two) a week for effect. Did try to abstain for a season last but freaked out & got warded for a weekend. Soon as I was out, resumed (on Lent?) and within a month, family, friends, priests & quacks agreed I was much better than without.

most people start smoking weed in their teens and that damages them and their developing brain, proven fact by the Society of Neuroscience, while it may not impact older users not many people start using in their mid 20's

Right so we should actually regulate cannabis like alcohol, because then it would make it more difficult for children to get cannabis because they would require a picture ID, something a drug dealer doesn't require.

Right now according to a study minors can get herb easier than a beer.

Study Says It’s Easier For Teens To Buy Marijuana Than Beerby Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy DirectorAugust 28, 2009 It’s that time of year — time for one of America’s leading prohibitionist organizations, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (aka CASA), to once again report that seven-plus decades of criminal pot prohibition have resulted in making cannabis more readily available to teens than alcohol!

How would it be just as easy if you require a photo ID vs. not requiring one with a drug dealer? And any adult who supplies it could face criminal charges for distribution to minors. I'm not following your logic.

This is precisely what I meant, you moron. You're only displaying your own ignorance and proving my point which I just posted, by asking Chris such a stupid, irrelevant, biased, and insulting question, If that's all you've got, to back up your seriously flawed argument, then you've already proved we're right.

Thanks for backing up what I said about you. Just one thing, I never comment to people who think like you because I think it's going to be an intelligent discussion or that I in any way am delusional enough to think that I could teach you anything at all. No, I answer people like you sometimes when I think it's important for OTHER PEOPLE to learn the real facts and to call you out for them to see what an idiot you really are. You just did exactly that, but you're obviously too stupid to understand that. By the way, I do have a scientific background, and, unlike you, I do know what I'm talking about.

Oh, yes, just one more thing. That American flag in your photo. It's obviously there to show the world that you're a true American. Educated people who really understand what this country and our Constitution really stands for, don't need the flag to prove it. It's a sure sign where you're coming from politically and how you think.

No you believe that you could teach people that you know more than you actually do, you have an agenda to prove to people that you are smart but truthfully smart people do not need to do that at all. Your need to come to the aid and defense of others is proof of my point, I did not seek you out to comment on, you sought me out.

My points are factual, valid and based more in truth than your thuggish and trollish behavior disguised in intellectualism. Having served America and the People of this Country for 12 years in the United States Army until being disabled, so please do not try to disparage me or my though process because you are intellectually stunted. That photo is Abraham Lincoln a great American President of our Country.

Most people here will not learn anything from someone who chooses to be arrogant and ignorant and l sure do not care to interact with someone who has not answered any questions but has only chosen to troll on a page about marijuana.

A great American President of your country?? Really? I though Lincoln was a great AMERICAN president of Zimbabwe.haha sorry, but that was funny.

Anyway..Your opinions are very illogical. Lets talk about your argument with Chris. First of all, making some drug legal will most certainly make it harder to obtain without ID. Think about it. If the Government of ,lets say, US takes control over weed then the worlds biggest cannabis manufacturing facilities will ship all their products to the us government, because politicians have most money. Drug lords would perish very soon, or they'll start selling other illegal drugs because they simply wouldn't get enough money from selling weed. Then, in order to buy weed you would need to be at least 18 (or 21 in some countries) like with alcohol, thus IDs would be required. Also, doing something legally isn't as fun as doing it illegally so even though there would probably be more smokers, people would probably smoke less overall. Everyone would be happy (except the drug lords). There would be no drug wars and in that aspect the world would definitely be a better place.